Misogynist shocked that people think he has anything in common with other misogynist

MRAs are stunned that anyone might think they have anything in common with Roosh

Yesterday, I wrote about former A Voice for Men Number Two Boy Dean Esmay’s weird and hyperbolic AVFM post attacking Roosh Valizadeh, the scummy pickup artist that a previous AVFM post had described as a “deep thinker” and “a layered, tempered and earnest guy, who truly wants to help other men.”

By this he apparently means the tendency of media outlets to refer to Roosh as a Men’s Rights Activist, thus conflating the pure and innocent Men’s Rights movement with the terrible rape apologist Roosh, even though he’s not technically an MRA. (And it’s true, he’s not officially an MRA; he just shares so many of the beliefs of MRAs that last year AVFM was praising him as a deep thinker and decent dude.)

Like Esmay and presumably most other AVFMers, Scandrett assumes that journalists were wrongly calling Roosh an MRA on purpose, as part of some nefarious plot, and not because to most people outside the manosphere MRAs and PUAs look like conjoined twins.

“The MSM Global Rape Hoax was never about Roosh or PUAs or even the legalizing of rape allegation,” Scandrett asserts.

That was simply the excuse to call for proxy violence against men. While PUAs did receive some Discussion within the articles, without exception to my reading, not once did they miss calling him an MRA. Their real target. …

It is simply an attack on men, to silence their voices, to vilify and demonize Men’s Human Rights Activists with a false allegation of rape advocates.

As you can see, Scandrett is not what you’d call a particularly lucid writer.

And his post only gets weirder, with Scandrett declaring that this “call for torches and pitchforks” was really

about reasserting Mummies’ procreative abilities as the central and only thing of critical importance in our global human culture. The woman on the pedestal is a mother. The issue of her uterus is what gives her absolute protection and absolution from all crimes, her carte blanche. She has parlayed this privileged position over the centuries into power and speshul snowflake privileges. You are all attached, at a primal level, to your mothers, with few exceptions. A primary attachment. Even those who didn’t for various reasons, likely pined for her warm stereotypical comforts.

Null gravida women assume the same authority by virtue of being potential mothers. Sugar and spice becomes ‘I have the pussy, I make the rules.’

You want the sugar, you bend the knee.

Well ok then.

Scandrett continues onward with his peculiar and generally incomprehensible argument, declaring that “Feminism is a false allegation” and attacking Roosh himself for “help[ing] to tar us all with the false allegation of rapist at a global level of perception.”

Scandrett has managed to convince himself that none of Roosh’s critics are really bothered by Roosh and his toxic views; they just want an excuse to beat up on the real enemy, MRAs.

The gynarchy couldn’t give a flying toss about PUA’s. Or even any actual attempt to legalize rape should a single human in the history of humanity be stupid enough to try it. The more the boys get between the girls legs, the more babies get born and child support gets paid, the more future economic growth and taxpayers we can expect and the more money gets released to the US states.

Drunk or sober, they couldn’t give a rats. So long as the livestock keeps breeding, the Great Human Ant Colony will thrive.

Nonetheless, he warns, “[t]he lying sexist feminist pigs,” will use Roosh’s “‘thought experiment’ … as a club for as long as they draw breath.”

Scandrett leaves us with a few other bon mots as he staggers unsteadily to his conclusion, my favorite being this “sentence” here:

The selfish paradigm that boys getting their end away as central and paramount is idiotic in the face of the ocean of male suffering we confront daily.

Scandrett concludes by informing us that “Roosh Rage is better out than in,” whatever that means.

Meanwhile, Roosh has decided to troll MRAs by declaring himself one of them.

MRA's were the first to throw me under the bus in the meetup outrage. To piss them off I'm going to start calling myself an MRA.

Comments

I love this site and the work you do is important as well as hilarious…but, how sure are you that the targets of your scorn aren’t mentally ill? This one seems seriously not right in the head. I usually have no problem at all laughing at hate-muppets and the idiotic things they say, but the rampant paranoia some of these guys exhibit borders on the schizophrenic. I’m not suggesting hug-an-MRA day, I’m just conscious, for the first time, in truth, of feeling a bit uncomfortable at mocking someone who is clearly very, very… not well.

The Doosh (I refuse to use his name after seeing how excited he got about watching it trending – graphs and everything) almost certainly has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and is probably a sociopath. While this makes him extremely dangerous, it also means he is a broken person, likely irreparably. And it would mean that his lack of empathy has a biological foundation.

Do you think it’s even possible to be sane and entertain the kinds of thoughts some of these people have – Lizard Gynarchies and whatnot? If not, are they insane beyond the point where it makes sense to hold them personally responsible for the things they say/do?

Perhaps you’ve discussed this question before and I’m treading old ground but I’d be interested in your thoughts. Just where does one draw the line between malevolence and insanity? I know your purpose here is just to shine a light on their murkitude, but what is the answer to the existence of these groups? How should society deal with them? Is this too many questions for a comment post? OK, I’ll shut up now.

Based on some of the things David has quoted on this blog, I get the impression some MRAs define “not having sex with me” as proxy violence. That’s their justification for their own violence against women – in their minds, it’s a perfectly reasonable retaliation for violence that has been done unto them.

Ugh. They probably do think of “incel” as a form of violence against them.

Just been reading a bit about the Zoe Quinn thing. It’s a pity they don’t have the ‘super-injunction’ in the US. They’re a bit controversial here, but one might address the particular circumstances in her case.

Yes, it has been discussed here in the past. Read the comment policy, please. Short form? There’s a difference between “narcissist” and “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”, and just because someone is the former doesn’t mean that they have the latter.

More generally, “asshole” is not a synonym for “mental disorder”. There is absolutely nothing in the world stopping people with normal neurology from coming to conclusions this blinkered, bigoted, and wrong.

Others have already directed you to the comment policy. I’m just going to add that mental health professionals don’t diagnose people based on what they read. Diagnostic labels get applied (ideally) after face-to-face meetings, based on the current and past history reported by the patient, not to mention any other assessments deemed necessary.

I heard about that. Hopefully, all the trolling and hate will blow over soon, but she should start carrying things she can use in self-defense if she can. There might be a few violent men interested in her. *shudders*

This guy is so right, as a man I cannot even remember the numerous occasion when I’ve been forced to squirm on all fours and kiss the feet of Miss Beatrice — the old lady who lives next door — whenever I show up to borrow a cup of sugar. This proves the gynarchy exists! How could I have been so blind?

@Alan

I’m not sure if a super-injuction would be able to help Zoe Quinn. It may stop journalists from reporting on the individual but it doesn’t stop the issue from circulating on social media. Not only did much of the harassment occur on social media, but also social media was vital in the circulation of accusations against Quinn at the start of GG.

Also, I have an off topic — and seemingly random — question. What kind of accent does Boris Johnson have? I can’t quite explain it, but his pronunciation sounds “off” when compared to RP speakers.

The thing with a super injunction is that, as well as prohibiting any direct activities, it would prohibit any mention that the injunction existed or even that proceedings had been issued to get one. It would prevent matey-boy from doing his ‘my ex is trying to silence me’ schtick and then sitting back whilst every asshole on the internet harasses her on his behalf. There’d be nothing in the public domain for them to react to, if you get my drift.

As for Boris, it seems to be that fairly common British public school accent. Not quite RP. Posh but slightly louche. And of course he has quite a mixed family background (he does a very good US accent) so that might feed into it.

Guest – oh how I cringed when I saw your post. We do not speculate on people’s health conditions – diagnosing or mental health shaming is just not OK here, for many good reasons. Please feel welcome to post here, but read and understand the comments policy!

I have trouble seeing how a super-injunction would have helped.Zoe Quinn did get an injunction against Gjoni. He broke it, so presumably he would have broken a super-injuction also. Plus, by the time she got the injunction the fact that he had beef with her was hardly secret. It would be nice to stop him from actively spreading hateful gossip about her but covering up the mere fact that he hates her doesn’t strike me as possible or even desirable.

I always found the neotny argument facinating; it’s 100 years old (at least), demonstrated to be false and then abandoned. Now you can read online comments where people bring it up like it’s some sort of unpopular truth.

These arguments have always been used to justify racism and sexism. Even Paul Broca was all… women have smaller brains, it may be because women are smaller than men, but it’s probably because women are not as smart as men, because everyone knows women are just a little bit less intelligent (paraphrasing here)

When it comes to brains, it really is not the size that counts. Neuron density in the cortex is our best biological construct for intelligence, to my knowledge

@Alan I believe the First Amendment in the US makes it so someone can’t be completely prohibited from discussing a legal case. So Eron is technically not violating the restraining order if he simply complains about the conditions of the order. He’s probably protected as long as he just complains and he’s completely passive with respect to the people harassing Quinn.

US law also has a history of murkiness on mob actions. You can’t really get a general protection order against mob harassment because courts assume there will be a named defendant.

Yeah, that’s one of the main objections to super injunctions here. I’ve had some experience of them (which obviously I can’t discuss) when we’ve used them in blackmail cases, so that has been deemed to be a reasonable restriction on the general right to free speech.

We also have injunctions against groups of un-named and indeed unknown individuals in things like some of the animal rights activist cases.

Of course, enforcement is a massive issue. Easy enough within the jurisdiction but almost impossible outside, as the ‘Spycatcher’ case demonstrated. Even moreso with the internet.

Gjoni knows what he’s doing. At first he only talked about Quinn even though he knew the people on r9k would harass her for him. He wrote multiple drafts of the blog post so that it would appeal to people on 4chan even though it seems like it’s a first draft.

I think that’s meant to be read as “in the broad course of human behavior, this sort of thing has occurred, simply because humans have all sorts of bizarre twists of conduct, however, it’s not statistically significant in any way.

And of course, I’m sure MRAs would count the following as an example of “Proxy Violence”:

‘Nice Guy’: “Hey, that guy you’ve been dating is a real jerk. Why don’t you dump him and go out with me?”
Woman: “No, thanks, you and I are just friends.”
‘Nice Guy’: *Proceeds to engage in all sorts of creepy stalkery behavior while simultaneously trying to sabotage the relationship. Woman’s boyfriend eventually finds out about it.*
Boyfriend: “Hey, jackass, quit harassing her.”
Woman: “Eh, don’t worry about him, he’s just doesn’t get it.”
Boyfriend: “Well this will make sure he does.”
*Fight ensues, Boyfriend wins.*
Woman: *Rolls eyes* “Look, can we just go, now?”
‘Nice Guy’: “Proxy violence!”

(I suspect “Calling the cops on your stalker/abuser” is also considered proxy violence.)

Yeah. You can find case histories of women committing all sorts of interpersonal violence offenses. There’s plenty of research into behaviorally profiling them. MRA’s assert that something is statistically significant by rejecting all evidence to the contrary and selectively focusing on hand-wavy plausibility arguments. There is technically some evidence for their claims, but it’s like the evidence that the Earth is stationary because you can’t feel it move.

But there’s absolutely no evidence that women who report stalking and abuse are “black widow” murderers.

<span class=”mra”>But… but… women control men with their butts! Men have to kneel before women if they want the sugar! Men can’t help themselves when a(n attractive) woman asks them to do something!</span>

These guys aren’t just random wild-eyed creatures of the streetcorner near the derelict mental hospital. They’re actually organized, with a sub-culture and a sub-language of their own. They have fora, which are not labelled as being “for the mentally ill”.

Plus, there are plenty of mentally ill people (some of whom are regulars here) who aren’t assholes.

And there is, sadly, no pill that these guys can take that will keep their assholery in check.

Having poor moral character or being a bigot isn’t the same as having a mental illness.

Even if we were to change the definition of “mental illness” to automatically include bigots, we already know that medication and talk therapy don’t work on them. It may even make them worse if they learn social skills that help them deceive and manipulate people. It also hurts people with actual mental illnesses to be associated with horrible people. There’s already a widespread misconception that mentally ill people are dangerous.

Yes, it has been discussed here in the past. Read the comment policy, please. Short form? There’s a difference between “narcissist” and “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”, and just because someone is the former doesn’t mean that they have the latter.
More generally, “asshole” is not a synonym for “mental disorder”. There is absolutely nothing in the world stopping people with normal neurology from coming to conclusions this blinkered, bigoted, and wrong.

& others

I’m not sure if you are deliberately misrepresenting me or just don’t understand where I’m coming from.
I have read the comments policy (which I understand to be a prohibition on the use of language which is insensitive to people with mental health problems). Given that that’s pretty much the opposite of what I’m trying to do, I’m not sure why so many knee jerk “read the policy” responses are necessary, and at the same time nothing substantive in the way of addressing my question. Yes, I know the difference between NPD and “narcissist”, tyvm – it’s ok to hate on morally-bankrupt narcissists but not ok to hate on people with a “bona fide” psychiatric diagnosis, apparently. I also know there are plenty of people with mental health issues who aren’t misogynistic assholes – most, one suspects. And that mocking people for disability is grotesque (actually, my point).

So far, so obvious.

I’m curious that someone can feel free to say that you are 100% confident that these people have full mental health (and are by extension legitimate targets of your scorn) but at the same time say that it’s impossible to assess mental health based on what people say/do. Isn’t that something of a contradiction?

If someone ACTUALLY believes some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories of the MRM, they have, without any exaggeration whatsoever, lost touch with reality. They are therefore, to all intents and purposes, psychotic. DSM is not required to make sense of this. Just because people fling around medical diagnoses as terms of abuse, doesn’t make this less true. It’s is possible to experience induced psychosis through the use of drugs, sensory deprivation, severe trauma, etc. Why not through exposure to toxic ideology? Not sure why you find this to be such a sacred taboo.

In any event, I’m really not sure what benefit accrues from simply stating over and over again that these guys/gals are gibbering idiots. It’s rather smug, it might make one feel superior, but I’m not sure what else it accomplishes. I get that there is a need to vent about stupid-shit-people-say, but ultimately I’m not sure it does anything other than escalate the petty flame war. I’m not saying I have all the answers, which is why I was humbly asking for some. If you don’t have any that’s all you needed to say.

Seriously, what is it with people who barge in and assume the comments policy doesn’t apply to them. Have some fucking sense. We’ve obviously already discussed these things before and have come to certain conclusions. Maybe try to contribute something, ANYTHING, to the community before you start dictating what the rules should be.

Cute. Someone wants to play “long winded white person.” This is a game I’m good at.

Lemme break it down for you, Guest.

If someone ACTUALLY believes some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories of the MRM, they have, without any exaggeration whatsoever, lost touch with reality. They are therefore, to all intents and purposes, psychotic.

No they are not. A psychotic person cannot choose what they hallucinate or how they respond to stimuli, but copes with those responses as best they can. A conspiracy theorist sees the same reality as us, but chooses to respond inappropriately. The two are diagonally different.

Some conspiracy theorists may suffer from mental illnesses (in any large group there will always be some ill people, that being how statistics work) but there is no learned study which has found that conspiracy theories are consistently the result of illness.

On the other hand, many mentally ill people believe things which are entirely true. We have a regular on this site called Policy of Madness who’s one of the smartest and most insightful people I’ve come across, and who self-describes as insane.* Her opinions are therefore by definition those of an insane person. They also happen to be right.

It’s is possible to experience induced psychosis through the use of drugs, sensory deprivation, severe trauma, etc. Why not through exposure to toxic ideology?

Because that isn’t how the human brain works. The types of psychosis that you have described come from things that impair the physical operation of the human brain. Ideology does not alter the physical operation of the human brain. It may cause a person to disagree with you, even to believe things that you find abhorrent, but they have arrived at those opinions through the rational operation of the human brain.

It’s easy to write off someone’s opinion by declaring them to be insane. This is a traditional thing for men to do to women who disagree with them, and for white people to do to black people who disagree with them. Like most easy answers, it’s usually wrong.

It’s also tempting to claim that only mentally ill people do or say terrible things; and that therefore a) I personally could never do those things, and b) the people who do those things must be mad, crazy, The Other. This, too, is wrong.

The Soviets were sane when they engineered the famine of 1934. The British were sane when they implemented the great genocide of Sri Lanka. The Americans and Australians who exterminated their native inhabitants, and their descendants who refuse to acknowledge this as genocide and to make restorations, are sane. Sane people can do terrible things. You are (so far as I know) sane; you are capable of doing terrible things. So am I. Does this terrify you?

Since you singled my comment out I’ll reply. I know you’re just using it as an example of the replies you have gotten.

They may have NPD! This is true. They may have biological reasons for their behaviour that makes it a compulsion, even!

We don’t diagnose someones’ mental condition over the internet here, however, because anyone qualified to make a diagnosis would say that’s a stupid thing to do. We can’t know, and further, it’s irrelevant. There is no need to assume mental illness of any kind.

Their brand of hate is eminently explainable as plain old bigotry and hate. There’s no need to tack on “And perhaps mental illness!” This does nothing but perpetuate the stereotype that people with mental illnesses are unstable, dangerous, and selfish.

People with mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of hate and violence, not the perpetrators. On this blog, we try to be on their side, to support them instead of driving a hatebus over them. So, we don’t associate bad behaviour with mental illness, because they are poorly associated.

Got it? I hope you can see where this position is from. It’s why we have a “no ableism” policy here, and why we try to avoid associating “crazy” with “bad”. Because that’s a stereotype, not a real association.

If you have other questions as to why we have this policy, you can ask, but please abide by it. It’s not something we like ’round here.

Hi, mentally ill person here with some brain damage to boot! When I first came here, I thought the policy was odd. I mean, everyone uses crazy as shorthand for a lot of situations that don’t literally mean mentally ill. But I made a mental note of it and hung around for a while. I started to understand where the policy came from after the umpteenth time someone came in here claiming that these guys are just crazy and that we shouldn’t take what they say seriously. Because it’s obvious that these ideas are not born out of illness but of hatred. These people are not making assertions that are completely detached from reality. Their ideas are in line with ideas that are deeply entrenched in our society. This is not a disease. And to say that they act just like they have a specific or even non-specific disease is insulting to the people who have that disease or class of diseases. You’re telling everyone who has that disease that you think they’re just like these terrible people, and your only evidence for thinking that is the terrible things these people say and the terrible things they do.

I hope I’m making sense. I just woke up after a long night of insomnia.

Actually, while we have an ableist in the thread, I have a question for them.

@Guest

How do you ableists make sense of your apparent belief that every mental illness, disorder and disability, from schizophrenia to autism to brain cancer, all have the same symptom (that is, misogyny)? How would that work biologically? Do you think that all people are naturally misogynistic, or that there’s a misogyny switch in the brain, or what? And if so, wouldn’t that render all the desperate othering moot? I’m serious, I don’t get it.

I confess that sometimes it takes more conscious effort to avoid terminology that is in conflict with the comments policy but does tend to be part of discussions I have on a regular basis elsewhere. Still, I know that not using the terminology or armchair diagnosing is part of the price of admission (the other part is not being a rude troll) to comment here. I wouldn’t be here unless I was willing to make that effort (I’m fairly new here myself so adapting is ongoing) but I can tell the difference between asshole who chooses not to abide by the policy yet still thinks they have the unfettered right to break it, usually with WAY TOO MANY words that amount to ‘special so logical excuse-maker’ and other kind of new-ish people such as myself.

Just because those assholes come here and try to drown everyone in a flood of words doesn’t change the fact that there is a policy and not abiding by it can result in assholes being thrown out on their butt.

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